Archive for the ‘Mailbag Time!’ Category

For whatever reason, small tragedies keep befalling me as I try to prepare articles for the upcoming Cavaliers season. But then, you might not want to read 1800 words of post-apocalyptic Dion Waiters fan fiction anyway. Regardless, I’ve thrown together a couple questions that were kicking around my inbox for an abbreviated version of Mailbag Time!

Cory:

Chris Grant has followed his plan to rebuild the Cavs roster organically through the draft (I totally agree). When do you see Grant adding to the payroll via free agency or cash dump from another team to finish off the roster? Next summer? 2014? Not that I think the Cavs are looking to 2014 for a certain opt out but he has bypassed the small forward position thus far in the draft.

Kevin’s spoken on this more than I have, but as I understand it, the value of cap space is twofold. It allows you to: 1.) throw money at whomever you want in free agency and 2.) absorb bad contracts in a trade that nets you an exceptional player or lottery picks. We’ve seen the Cavs exercise the latter advantage when they nabbed an additional lottery pick from the Clippers in exchange for the fat ghost of Baron Davis, and regardless of how close they were to landing Andrew Bynum when the Lakers were looking for a trade partner in their pursuit of Dwight Howard, the Cavs would have been fully capable of taking on a bunch of lousy Orlando contracts if the Magic had wanted to jettison the likes of Hedo Turkoglu, Glen Davis, et al.

I think over the next couple of seasons, we’ll see the Cavs continue to try to use their cap space to facilitate trades. Though I’m a bit concerned they’re developing a reputation as a finicky trade partner, Chris Grant seems to work the phones pretty hard when talent or draft picks are on the market. We’ve seen the Cavs pop up in a lot of trade rumors over the past couple of years, and I think this is due in part to the fact they’re one of the few teams in the league that has the sort of cap space that makes them an ideal third team in a blockbuster.

As far as if and when they’ll cash in that cap space on free agents, I can’t with any confidence tell you that it’s going to be a certain summer (2013, 2014, 2015), but from reading the tea leaves, I think the Cavs will spend money on the free agent market (assuming they haven’t used their cap space to acquire a superstar via trade) to supplement an already extant core. In other words, I would be surprised if they tried to sign a superstar on the free agent market. (It also probably wouldn’t work.) I think they’re hoping Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters will develop into one of the best backcourts in the league, Tristan Thompson will become something like a super athletic Andy Varejao, and that they can draft a really good player in one of the next couple of drafts (remember: the protection on that Kings pick they acquired in the Hickson-Casspi deal continues to dwindle each year).

Then, if all goes well, they’ll be able to use their cap space—which won’t be bountiful if Waiters and/or future draft picks turn out to be all-stars; we’re being reminded by the James Harden saga that the only downside to drafting well is you eventually have to dole out big contracts to guys who used to be on paltry rookie deals—to sign the sort of $3-6 million per year specialists that will round out the roster and paper over their deficiencies. I could see them getting knocked out of a seven-game series with the Bulls in round two of the 2015 playoffs, deciding they need a scorer off the bench, and going after a Jason Terry type.

Of course, that’s a rosy future pretty far down the rabbit hole. But all indications point toward this front office living and dying with the players it drafts, not extravagant free agent pickups. Perhaps now you understand that I’m piloting the Saint Weirdo bandwagon mostly out of gleeful fatalism. Dion Waiters: Because We’re Not Celtics Fans.

Ben:

1. How good can Dion Waiters be?

2. How bad could Tristan Thompson be?

The answers to those two questions will help us understand how much Kyrie Irving Cleveland can hope to enjoy. Zeller/Varajeo is the perfect center combination for a dominant point who likes to run. There isn’t a small forward on the roster worth noting… if TT and Dion can develop Kyrie might see a future. If they don’t, I don’t see him sticking around.

I think Tristan is a more engaged Tyrus Thomas, but not that much more. He is the weak link.

I agree with you I think Dion is incredibly interesting, but do you really believe he can be the second best player on a contender? I haven’t seen it.

The answer to your first question is obviously that I don’t know, so I’ll keep my explanation short. The Cavs drafted Dion Waiters because he has the potential to be great—one of the very best shooting guards in the league—as compared to Harrison Barnes, who might end up being a better player than Waiters, but who would also surprise me and a lot of other people if he develops into a superior version of Danny Granger. Thomas Robinson presented the same sort “ceiling problem” as Barnes (though I like T-Rob better), plus he plays the same position as Tristan Thompson, who the Cavs would either have had to ship out or relegate to the bench. I guess Andre Drummond was in the mix at the fourth pick, too, but I think Chris Grant had visions of an offensively incompetent front line of Drummond and Thompson and elected to go with the guy who can score. So yeah: Dion Waiters was the best available option, and he can become a terrific player. If you’d like to ask me if he will, I’m not drunk enough right now to summon the gall to answer that question. But it’s the preseason; we can still dream.

The question of TT’s basement is something I can come closer to answering. I actually think he’s going to be okay, which I acknowledge is kind of a crushingthing to say about a fourth overall pick heading into his sophomore season, but the 2011 draft was probably not great, beggars can’t be choosers, etc. As has been written on this blog before: he’s got a gift for snagging offensive rebounds; he’s a great athlete; and the coaching staff raves about his work ethic and coachability. I think, if the Cavs surround him with offensively talented players that allow him to focus on defense, rebounding, and garbage buckets, he’ll be fine and perhaps even thrive. I hope he transforms into the Canadian Serge Ibaka everyone is anticipating, but I’m not too sour on the prospect of him becoming a double-double guy who occasionally looks like he doesn’t know how to control his limbs.

And Kyrie’s not going anywhere. His rookie deal runs a few more years, and after that he’s a restricted free agent. It would be ideal if he re-ups with the Cavs before he reaches RFA status, but if the situation gets that far, the Cavs will just match whatever token offer sheet a team with cap space extends to him. Irving will be a Cavalier until his mid-20s at least.

I know both emails mentioned the whole small forward problem. This has already been a pretty bleak 1300 words. Let’s save that question for another time, ’cause I have a long and speculative answer.

If you’d like to submit a question for Mailbag Time! my email is colinsilasmcgowan [at] gmail [dot] com. Or you can hit me up on Twitter at @cs_mcgowan.

Don’t think for a second that I wouldn’t have used WordArt if it was available to me in the off-brand Microsoft Paint program I used to create the Mailbag Time! logo. I would have used a giant drop shadow and one of those preset gradients. You could be looking at the red-brown hues of “desert sunset” right now. I live in your nightmares, visual communications majors.

Now, your emails:

Aksel:

Lack of faith in Chris Grant is keeping me from going all-in on this
iteration of the Cavs. Help me let go of the Valančiūnas/Thompson and
Barnes/Waiters decisions. This team is going to succeed or fail based
on the outcome of Top Five picks and that is ultimately one man’s
decision: Grant. Let’s just say that I’m not impressed so far.

We’re in accord about the Valančiūnas/Thompson selection, which I’ve groused about both publicly and privately. I think it was a mistake, which is to some degree absurd considering Thompson is entering his second season, and we haven’t even had the opportunity to see what Jonas Valančiūnas can do in the NBA. But yet I’ve talked in wistful tones with fellow Cavs fans about about an alternate universe in which the team is built around Kyrie Irving and Jonas. (I even call him Jonas as a term of affection, as if he’s on my favorite team and I’m already acclimated to watching him play basketball three times a week.) I’m sure, if Dion Waiters struggles and/or Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is great, that I’ll have similar fantasies about what the Cavs would look like if the Bobcats passed on MKG.

I thought Chris Grant made the right decision taking Waiters over Barnes, but this is perhaps more to your point: we’re all a bunch of amateur meteorologists, in a sense, and we get upset when the forecast the GM puts forth doesn’t match our own. In this early stage of team-building, when no one is definitively right or wrong yet, we want the team to take our guys, when in fact that doesn’t much matter. You’ll love (or at least grow to accept) Dion Waiters if, at age 25, he’s a three-time all-star regardless of whether, at this point in time, you like him or dislike him; think he’s going to be a great player or a bust. But it’s always an added jolt to see your guys succeed. See, I always liked Thomas Robinson and now he’s averaging 18-and-10!

I don’t think this is foolish at all. It feels good to be right or to see a ballplayer you have an affinity for figure out how to best utilize his talents. But I think the question of going all-in might be moot. Chris Grant went all-in for you, and the next five years of the team is going to be determined, not just by the decisions he might make in the future, but by the ones he’s already made. We won’t really know if those decisions were right or wrong for a few more years, and by the time that has happened, if Grant has been wrong this whole time, the Cavs will be demolishing the team and starting over again for the second time in a decade.

In sum, embrace fatalism. Try to love the team you have, because the team that’s going to exist in three or four years is going to look a lot like this one, just sharper, not as shrouded in haze that obscures precisely how good Tristan Thompson will be.

Shawn:

As a Cavs fan in New Orleans, I’ve been having to deal with a lot of AD hype, but I’m steadfast the Cavs will have a better record and make the playoffs this year. Agree?

Well, the Hornets blew up their team in the offseason, and it seems clear to me that they’re doing more or less the same thing the Cavs did in Irving’s rookie season. They have their franchise cornerstone (Davis is perceived as more of a surefire future star than Irving was coming out of Duke), and they plan to flank him with Eric Gordon, an assortment of raw youngsters, and little else. They’ll suck for another season, nab a top five draft pick, and then start making an earnest push toward significant improvement.

In a lot of ways, the Hornets underwent a more radical roster purge in the offseason than did the Cavs, who at least kept Antawn Jamison, Andy Varejao, and Anthony Parker around. I’d make a dubious claim that they’re more talented because Gordon (when healthy, which is obviously a gigantic issue for him) is a much better player than either Jamison or Varejao and because Austin Rivers at least has some NBA-ready skills (he’s a great one-on-one player) whereas Tristan Thompson often looked like he’d recently woken up from a chloroform nap for the first half of last season. Will Davis have a better rookie season than Irving? Probably not, but I think he’ll be immediately effective on the defensive end and the glass.

All of this is to say that, yeah, the Cavs are almost definitely better than the Hornets right now because the Hornets are working off a similar schematic but are a year behind. Anyway, your friend is totally justified in being excited for the Anthony Davis Era. Who wouldn’t be? Here’s to a Cavs-Hornets finals in 2018.

Kris:

Do you think the Cavs are playoff contenders this year? If so, what makes you believe such a thing? If not, what changes do you think need to be made for us to get there? I understand a lot of this team is relying on potential so this question could really go either way.

Yeah, it’s tough. My hunch is to say that the Cavs won’t be very good, but I wouldn’t break into hysterics if they were pushing for the eighth seed in April. John Hollinger recently recorded little 3-minute interviews in which he projected how well teams were going to perform, and while he’s very optimistic (more optimistic than me) about what the Cavs are in the process of building, he also thinks the team will be mildly competent playoff longshots.

I think I agree with him because, well, here: The Cavs lost an inefficient but still useful scorer in Jamison. If they hang onto Varejao for the whole season, and he stays healthy, that’ll be good for them. C.J. Miles is a decent backup, but that’s really all he is. Irving will be better, but teams will also have more film on him and be able to build their defensive strategy around stopping him. Saint Weirdo is Saint Weirdo, whatever that will come to mean. Tyler Zeller is the plain yogurt of basketball players. There’s a lot of minute plusses and minuses at play in the equation, and I think it adds up cumulatively to a positive: I would be shocked if this team isn’t noticeably better than it was last year, but finishing with something like 38-to-42 wins seems like a stretch.

Fortunately, the team needs to improve in ways it is completely capable of improving. They’ll have a decent-to-great selection in next year’s draft (I don’t want to talk about the “weak draft” thing eight months out; we’ll think about crossing that bridge when we’re within 500 miles of it) and plenty of cap space to add free agents or absorb contracts in a trade. And obviously they have young talent that’s going to get better over the next half-decade. The Cavs aren’t close to where they want to be yet, but I don’t think they’re lagging behind schedule.

Adam:

What player would you compare Tyler Zeller’s ceiling too? I liked him in college but I feel like everyone became a little down on him towards the end of the season?

Lemme flesh out this plain yogurt analogy. You know what plain yogurt goes with? Everything. You can dunk apples in it, pair it with granola, use it in a sauce. It’s an exceedingly useful dairy product. But anyone who would consume plain yogurt by itself and call it a meal is living a life of poverty and/or delusion. You have to use it in concert with other foods and spices in order to get the most out of what it has to offer. Plain yogurt asks of you: How can you fully realize my potential? What is plain yogurt’s ceiling? When you admire its best traits (its creaminess, its slightly bitter taste) while its less desirable traits (it being barely a thing) are overwhelmed by the other ingredients you fold into it. It’s at its best when you’re underappreciating it. Get my meaning?

Also, Tyler Zeller is white.

This was fun, you guys. If you want to keep doing this, feel free to hit me up at colinsilasmcgowan [at] gmail [dot] com or @cs_mcgowan on Twitter. If and when I get a few good questions, I’ll post another installment.

The Lineup: (Click for Author’s Archive)

Nate Smith is an Associate Editor. He grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and moved to NE Ohio in 2000. He adopted the Cavs in 2003 and graduated from Kent State in 2009 with a BA in English. He can be contacted at oldseaminer@gmail.com or @oldseaminer on Twitter.

Tom Pestak is an Associate Editor. He's from the west side of Cleveland and lives and (mostly) dies by the success and (mostly) failures of his beloved teams. You can watch his fanaticism during Cavs games @tompestak.

Robert Attenweiler is a Staff Writer. Originally from OH, he's long made his home in NYC where he writes plays and screenplays (www.disgracedproductions.com) some of which end up being about Ohio, basketball or both. He has also written for The Classical and the blog Raising the Cadavalier. You can contact him at rattenweiler@gmail.com or @cadavalier.

Benjamin Werth is a Staff Writer. He was born in Cleveland and raised in Mentor, OH. He now lives in Germany where he is an opera singer and actor. He can be reached at blfwerth@gmail.com.

Cory Hughey is a Staff Writer. He grew up in Youngstown, the Gary, Indiana of Ohio. He graduated from Youngstown State in 2008 with a worthless telecommunications degree. He can be contacted at theleperfromwatts@yahoo.com or @coryhughey on Twitter.

David Wood is our Links Editor. He is a 2012 Graduate of Syracuse University with an English degree who loves bikes, beer, basketball, writing, and Rimbaud. He can be reached on Twitter: @nothingwood.

Mallory Factor is the voice of Cavs: The Podcast. By day Mallory works in fundraising and by night he runs a music business company. To see his music endeavors check out www.fivetracks.com. Hit him up at Malloryfactorii@gmail.com or @Malfii.

John Krolik is the Editor Emeritus of Cavs: The Blog. At present, he is pursuing a law degree at Tulane University. You can contact him at johnkrolik@gmail.com or @johnkrolik.

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